Pittsburghers know that the times are out of joint. Somehow they're expecting the prosperity to blow up in their faces.
Fortune Magazine, 1941

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Speaking of History

An anniversary of one of the more dramatic and heroic stories of Pittsburgh past is coming up. This week is an anniversary of what happened on May 23, 1978 atop the remnant of the Brady Street Bridge (its successor to be renamed the Birmingham Bridge a year later) which was being prepared for demolition. Local ironworker Ralph Winner had to have his leg amputated by Dr. Joseph Young nearly 126 feet in the air. Winner was preparing the bridge for its demoltion when shifting girders trapped him atop the bridge.

Not just this one story, but it seems to me that Pittsburgh is responsible for a remarkable part of the modern history of paramedicine in the United States, yet I am not sure there is a full history of it written up.